Lip service, no more, is what governments seem to be doing about the growth in the number of Food Bank users. TorStar contributor writes about the problem:
Food bank demand won’t fall with inflation
Source: Jonah Prousky, Toronto Star contributor, Feb. 25, 2024
At long last, inflation has fallen. The consumer price index rose by 2.9 per cent in January, down from 3.4 per cent in December. That’s great news for, well, just about everyone.
As Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said last November, inflation is “our common enemy — not only because it creates financial pain and social upheaval, but also because no one wins when inflation is high and volatile.”
However, this modest fall in inflation will not remedy the damage and precariousness introduced by the pandemic and the inflationary run up it brought about. Sharp rises in inflation create societal rifts that a subsequent fall in inflation cannot so easily solve. Nowhere is this clearer than at Toronto’s food banks.
The inflationary run that began in 2021 didn’t just aggravate food insecurity in Toronto, it transformed the problem into something wholly different and much worse. Food banks now serve a sobering one in 10 Torontonians, according to a report from the Daily Bread Food Bank
I spoke to Neil Hetherington, CEO of Daily Bread late last year. At the time, the country looked poised to see inflation
just as it now has. This led
me to ask Hetherington if he thought recent spikes in food bank attendance might soon fall, too. Hetherington said food bank usage across Toronto is not merely spiking, it has been growing exponentially and there’s no end to this growth in sight.
“It took us 38 years to get to the point where we had one million client visits in a single year,” Hetherington said. “It took us two years to get to two million.” And in 2023, after just one year, client visits exceeded three million.
Food insecurity is percolating up through society in unprecedented ways. Now more than ever, food bank clients are both housed and employed. For example, the proportion of Daily Bread food bank clients living in privately rented homes last year jumped 57 per cent. Hetherington ran me through the math He explained how a single mother earning $50,000 a year might need to rely on a food bank to survive. After rent, child care and transportation, food — let alone healthy food —can be elusive, even on a steady paycheque.
Understandably, then, the outlook for Toronto’s food banks remains worrisome, despite the Bank of Canada’s success in bringing inflation within its 3-per-cent target.
“I’m an optimistic guy, but I’m going to give you some bad news,” said Hetherington. “We’re really concerned about 2024.”
All this begs the question: How dire must this city’s food insecurity problem get before our politicians take more aggressive action to combat it? Because it doesn’t look like monetary policy alone will solve this problem any time soon.
Prousky raises some valid points with a very sad conclusion: the Bank of Canada’s monetary policy will not likely solve the problem.
He’s right. Our government solution is to donate more money to the Food Banks. What does that do for the users other than increase the food availability at the Food Bank? The Food Bank user has not been helped meaningfully beyond receiving a food handout. Talk about an insulting problem-solving solution. Do nothing for the actual user? No educational assistance? No job training? No work availability assistance? The Food Bank user’s only change is momentary salving of hunger pains.
What is it with our politicians? Can’t they see the forest for the trees? Or are they so well fed they do not see beyond their own dinner tables?
Government leaders and elected representatives ought to dig deeper into responding to the responsibilities for which they were elected. Voters elected these representatives to find and develop solutions to social problems, real solutions, not band-aids like more food donations. Voters gave reps the mandate, now the onus is on the elected to fulfil their responsibilities.
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